Amid the Star's Light
by Korinna Calypso
Summary: [HP/ST: Voy]In a bizarre twist of fate, Harry is replaced by a table! No, actually, he was transported through time and space to the Federation Starship Voyager, where Harry finds himself into a stranger place than Hogwarts. [Chpater 3]
1. Equilibrium Disturbed

Chapter 1-Equilibrium Disturbed

_ Went away, sent away_

_ Shadowed by star's light_

_ Weary passengers aboard_

_ A weary traveler's flight_

- The Book of Lost

=/\= 

Ensign Harry Kim smiled down at his shinny black clarinet. Through all the battles and scrapes the starship _Voyager_ and her crew had been though, not one scratch, mark, or dent had found itself on the clarinet's shiny black coating or the shiny silver keys on the front. Kim prided himself on how well he'd kept his clarinet, and showed it by playing the best he could when he practiced. He owed it that much, at least.

Kim placed the clarinet's reed to his mouth and blew, producing the melody he'd chosen to play beforehand. A somewhat simple, and rather lonely, piece for a single clarinet to play; Kim sometimes thought how fantastic it would sound coming from the varied voices of an orchestra's instruments. He'd found the 300-year-old piece in an old database before he'd been assigned to _Voyager_, and he had only shared it occasionally with his bed, his table, his chair, and the stars that floated by as he played. He'd always wondered who had created such a wonderful piece and why, but that information was never available to him.

In the middle of playing a certain passage Kim had grown rather fond of, a, for lack of a better word, beep sounded above the clarinet's aria, causing Kim to stop abruptly.

Somebody wanted into Kim's quarters.

Kim sighed, placed his clarinet on his table, and walked over to the entrance of his quarters.

"You ready, Harry?" Tom Paris' voice called cheerfully before the doors were even fully open.

"Ready?" Kim questioned. He looked at Tom and noticed that he was wearing Irish style clothes from the 19th century and a hat that complimented his sandy-colored hair nicely.

"Last time I checked, we were going to try out Fair Haven, see if it was working." It had taken them a while to fix all the damage done to Fair Haven, but they had restored it back to what it had been by working between shifts and battles. 

"Oh," Kim suddenly figured out what Tom was talking about. "Right… Now I do… Hold on, I'll go change." He turned and reentered his quarters.

"You know, Harry," Tom followed Kim into his quarters, "I'd thought about reminding you while I was on my way over-"

Tom stopped right next to Kim and followed Kim's gaze to the floor. There, sprawled on the gray floor, was a boy, no older than 15, with untidy jet black hair and a pair of black robes over ordinary clothes, almost like the ones Tom had seen when _Voyager_ had been sent back in time to the year 1996. The boy lay where Kim's table would have normally been, and perched by his head were Kim's clarinet and a pair of glasses, which were broken.

Tom picked up Kim's clarinet. Shaking it at Kim, Tom said, "What'd you do, Harry, clobber him over the head with that clarinet of yours?"

=/\=

Nervously, Ron and Hermione waited in Filch's office, awaiting his return with Professors McGonagall and Snape. Being caught trying to break into Filch's office was not high on their list of things to do before they graduated from Hogwarts. But they had been caught, mostly because Harry disappeared and was replaced with a gray table, that looked very much out of place in the old castle, in a matter of less than a second.

"Well, if you think of it this way," Ron said, breaking the silence between them, "at least we got into Filch's office, didn't we?" He looked over at Hermione to see her reaction.

She didn't say anything, or even move for that matter; she kept her eyes straight ahead, staring at a spot somewhere around a rather large, over stuffed filling cabinet that said "Weasley, Fred and George" on the front.

"So… What's our excuse for being caught outside Filch's office in the dead of night with a table that came out of nowhere?" Ron asked Hermione, but he wasn't surprised when she didn't answer him. Then, he spotted an old, blank piece of parchment. "You wouldn't suppose this was the map, would you?"

Hermione stayed silent and still, her eyes not moving from Fred and George's filing cabinet.

"Oh, c'mon, Hermione!" Ron stuffed the piece of parchment into his robes. "We're not going to be expelled!"

Hermione moved; her eyes went from the filing cabinet to the floor, then to Ron. "How would you know?"

"Look at Fred and George," Ron pointed to the cabinet, "They've done worse, although, I don't think they've ever done anything in the company of a table like _that_…"

Behind them, the door to the office opened, and Filch walked in, followed by McGonagall, who was in turn followed by Snape. McGonagall looked very distraught, having been woken up so late at night, and Snape looked very happy, having spotted the two trying to get into the office. Filch, on the other hand, looked just as much like his usual self: all scowls.

With one half-asleep, but still very deadly looking glare, Professor McGonagall said, "Explain yourselves," through very thin white lips.

=/\=

Harry's eyes fluttered open. He didn't remember why he was lying on his back, or why he hurt so much. Above him he saw two blurry figures, one black and yellow, and the other had lighter colors and was holding something long, thick and black.

"You're awake," said the one with the light colors. His voice seemed friendly enough, but that long, thick black something loomed closer to Harry's head.

Suddenly, Harry's mind, which seemed more awake than his body did, made a connection. A guy was holding what looked like a club or a thick wand; possible pain, attack.

Before he knew what he was doing, Harry had scooted away from the figures, found his wand, and pointed it at the closer of the two.

"Hold on! It's okay!" the figure spoke again.

Harry, though, didn't seem to hear him. He kept his wand pointed towards the figure.

The figure leaned forward, towards Harry's glasses-

"_Petrificus Totalus_!" Harry shouted the first thing that came to his mind. The figure's legs snapped together, as did his arms to his sides. Then he fell over, stiff as a board, only his eyes moving about.

"Tom!" shouted the other figure, but he stayed where he was. He slapped something silver on his chest and said, "Kim to sickbay - medical emergency!"

_Where am I?_

Something wasn't right. The place Harry had found himself in was _not_ Hogwarts. But what it was, Harry wasn't quite sure.

He noticed as he was escorted to what was had been called "Sick Bay" that the walls along the corridors were a dull silver-gray and were made of some material that Harry had never seen before – not that he could tell, mind, for his glasses _were_ broken. The lighting seemed odd -- it looked artificial, like a Muggle light bulb or some such thing. But the people who they passed in the corridors seemed nice enough -- they smiled and sometimes waved at the black haired man who'd introduced himself as "Ensign Harry Kim". 

Harry followed Ensign Kim through the corridors, unsure of what to do or where to go. His instinct told him that it might just be best to follow this Kim. His logic agreed with his instinct and told him that he wouldn't have been able to find his way around anyway -- seeing as how after just a few turns, he found that he'd become lost amid the identical gray corridors that he couldn't really see.

By the time they had reached Sick Bay, Harry _had_ become a little disorientated. He wouldn't have been able to find is way back... anywhere. When he entered Sick Bay, he found that he hadn't escaped the grayness. The three or four "fuzzy" beds to his right were gray (although, there _was _a rainbow of various "fuzzy" spots on them). There was a gray bed straight in front of him as well; and there was also a light gray office area to his left, plus another room he assumed was gray. 

"Good day, Mr. Kim..." a balding man with a blue-striped uniform on the other side of this new room said off-handedly. To Harry, he seemed puzzled by the little silver box he held in his hand.

"Something wrong, doctor?" Kim asked, making his way across the room. 

"I'm not sure what is wrong with Mr. Paris; I can't make heads or tails of the readings... But he is alive, I can tell you that much..." The doctor looked at Kim, and then spotted Harry. "And who is this?"

A thought bubbled up in Harry's mind. _ They don't know who I am._ It was strange to have someone actually not know who he, The Boy Who Lived, was; nice for a change, but still strange, indeed. A thought in the popped up in the back of Harry's mind: were these people Muggle...?

"Harry Potter," he said.

The doctor turned to Kim. "A friend of ours? Did the captain bring someone new aboard without telling me?"

"No--he just appeared. He had only woken up when he did... _that_ to Tom..."

Harry looked over at the figure Ensign Kim had been talking about. Sure enough, "Tom Paris", the sandy-haired man with his 19th century clothing (which Harry could barely make out due to his lack of glasses), was lying as stiff as a board upon the bed that was on the other side of Sick Bay from the entrance way.

The doctor turned on Harry; he looked as though he was about to ask Harry a question, but was interrupted by a violent shaking. It seemed like the entire structure jumped up and slammed itself against something hard. Harry and Ensign Kim were thrown to the ground; the doctor, Harry noticed momentarily, only _fizzled_ a little. 

"What was that?" asked Kim. Before anyone could answer, though, everything slammed into another obviously hard object.

Then, all was dark.


	2. Great, Where'd That Nebula Come From?

Amid the Star's Light

Chapter 2:  _Great, Where'd That Nebula Come From?_

In which Harry finds out that he's not in Kansas anymore (although I highly doubt that that is where he started out in the first place), someone new arrives on _Voyager, and Ron must find a way to fend off two teachers and Filch._

=/\=

Yet again, Harry found himself in another gray corridor, which led to its identical cousin, and then the cousin's brother after that. Although, everything now looked better because his glasses were no longer broken. (Shortly after the lights had returned, he secretly repaired them when Kim wasn't looking). The doctor had disappeared when the room shook, but Harry hadn't seen where he'd gone--he almost started to worry about him. Ensign Kim felt that he had to go to some place called "the Bridge", but because the doctor was not there, he decided that he had to take Harry with him (for certain obvious reasons). When they left, they had to leave Tom Paris behind--only because it would have been very difficult to maneuver his very stiff body.

The halls seemed long and boring, and the two walked in silence for what seemed a very long time. But just as Harry's mind began to wander in a different direction (probably about where exactly he was), Ensign Kim decided to try and talk to Harry--which quickly jerked any and all of Harry's thoughts out of his head.

            "How… how did you do that to Tom?" he asked Harry. "It looked like… magic, like something out of a child's storybook."

            Truthfully, Harry couldn't think of any good ways to answer Kim's question. He figured that he couldn't just tell a complete stranger, who Harry wasn't sure if he was a Muggle or not, that he was a wizard, and yes, he did use magic. But, he couldn't just _not say anything either, for that would make him look rude or something along those lines. But as he thought about it, his mouth opened as if he was going to say something; then he promptly closed it._

            "Oh…" Ensign Kim said in a tone that had the smallest hint of disappointment. "You're not supposed to tell, are you?"

            Harry could only stay silent; he had no idea of what to do or what to say. Kim must have taken that as a hint that Harry really didn't want to talk about it, so he went silent and stayed that way until they got to the bridge. 

            The bridge was made out of the same gray shades that the rest of the place had been made of. Various people of all shapes and sizes (and even color) worked at various stations around this room. The stations at which they were doing these things were mainly towards the back (and the entrances to the bridge) and along the sides. In the middle of the room was some sort of barrier, like a fence, and then a step down to the lower part of the room. On the far side was what looked to be a large window, which showed a view of selected portion of the stars.

            Harry gawked at the window and the stars beyond it. _Stars?! If the window wasn't pointed up, or upon a large hill or mountain, or even bewitched like the Great Hall (which were/was all very unlikely, he figured), then there shouldn't have been any reason for him to be seeing those stars…_

            When they had walked onto the bridge, a woman looked up from something she was holding to see who they were. She had short hair, shoulder length at most, which was auburn in color; she wore the same uniform Kim was wearing, although it was red instead of yellow.

            "Mr. Kim," she greeted the Ensign in a friendly manner.

            "Captain, what's going on?" Kim asked. "I tried contacting the bridge from Sick Bay, but the comm system must have been down…"

"We haven't received a report about the comm system going down," said a man next to this captain, "and we were just talking with B'elanna…"

            Harry ignored the rest of the conversation that followed, although he did vaguely hear Kim report to the captain what had happened to Tom. The stars happened to be more fascinating than the words that came out of their mouths, but… there was something not quite right with them… something odd… but, what was it?

=/\=

Ron and Hermione looked at the teachers who stood in front of them. They were kidding, right? How were they possibly going to explain why they were trying to get into Filch's office in the dead of the night in a remotely reasonable manner? And what about the table--which had also found it's way into the office-- how were they going to tell the three of them straight out that it used to be Harry?

            So they sat in complete silence. Time seemed to fly by without stopping for tea, but they knew better than that; besides, there was a clock somewhere in the room that kept ticking. Ron could have sworn that he had heard Snape's dangerous "laughter" in that silence (possibly hoping McGonagall would take points away from Gryffindor for such acts); Filch's smile reminded him of how Filch wanted so much to bring the old punishments back.

            Thinking about that made Ron shudder. He really didn't want to be hung from the ceiling by his toes. It sounded awfully painful.

            "Ms. Granger," said Snape, finally breaking the silence, "For the sake of Gryffindor's precious points, _please do tell why we found the two of you and that table outside this office… And even perhaps why Mr. Potter isn't around this time…"_

            Hermione just stared back at the teachers as she tried to think of the best possible answer.

            =/\=

            "He did what?" Kim's "captain" exclaimed in her office, trying to understand what Kim had just told her. Apparently, she hadn't understood it any better than Kim had. 

            Harry looked out the windows that existed in this room, which was a smaller room off the side of the bridge. These windows, like the one on the bridge, showed a picture of the stars, but these slowly moved by in one direction. 

            "All I know is that Tom is now frozen stiff--he can barely move his eyes, if at all," Kim replied. The auburn haired lady looked towards Harry as if she had wanted to ask him a question, but Ensign Kim interrupted her before anything could leave her lips. "I've already asked him about it," he said, "and he didn't say anything at all."

            The captain paused, seeming to think about what she had to do next. After only just a few short moments, she turned again to Harry. "What is your name?"

            Harry knew that Kim already knew his name, and he could have, and would have, told her if she'd asked. But she had personally asked him and in a friendly manner – the sort that would have made him feel rude if he didn't answer. "Harry Potter," he told her, thinking there was no harm in them knowing his name. 

            "Harry Potter, I am Kathryn Janeway, captain of the Federation Starship _Voyager-"_

            _Starship? Harry's mouth mentally dropped. That couldn't possibly be what he imagined it to be, could it?_

            "Unfortunately, we now seem to have two Harry's aboard this ship. To reduce the sate of confusion this may cause at some point, you are now Mr. Potter," she said as she looked at Harry, "and Mr. Kim, as always—"

            Harry couldn't believe this. Where'd they get this whole starship idea? In an attempt to find an answer in his thoughts, he glanced out one of the windows--that caused him to do a double take. There, looming some distance away, was a puffy object of pink, purple and blue. A nebula: something that one should have only been able to see in Muggle science magazines and books. He just stood there, dumbstruck, at not only its beauty, but also the fact that it was _right there._

            "Oh, yes, centuries ago, the locals of the second planet in this system thought that this nebula was their heaven," she said once she saw Harry's reaction to the sight. "They, as a culture, have long since grown out of that belief, but some still do believe. Now, their government would like to mine it, and we're probing it for them…"

            Nebula? Probing? Planet?! Harry's mind began to spin. 

            "Breathtaking, isn't it? I can see why they called it their heaven… But, back to the topic--what did you do to Tom and how?"

            Harry stammered. He was completely stumped as to how any of this could be… "Where in the world am I?" he demanded.

            The captain looked at him strangely. "World? Mr. Potter, where are you from?"

            Glancing back at the windows, he answered, "England…"

            That seemed to have struck the captain oddly. She gave a quick glance at Mr. Kim, who looked just about as surprised as she. "Earth? You're from Earth?"

            Harry nodded, even though he thought the question was a little strange. Who wasn't from Earth?

            "Aren't we on Earth?"

            Shaking his head, Kim said, "We are a long way from Earth, Harry." That caused Harry's mouth to really drop.

            "The question is," said Janeway, "is how he got here, of all places…"

            A little voice in the back of Harry's mind thought that was a good question. The last thing he remembered was being with his friends, Ron and Hermione, outside Filch's office, trying to get inside; then, Kim's gray room; then Tom. After that, he story got… well, 'clearer' wasn't quite the word Harry had been looking for, and 'strange' didn't quite fit, either. Frankly, he couldn't think of a good answer.

            =/\=

            Things seemed to get back to normal--at least what they could consider normal aboard _Voyager, especially with their new guest.  Kathryn Janeway found him to be a strange boy; he was kind enough, but he did seem to be wrapped in as many mysteries as the Delta quadrant. How had he gotten himself onto __Voyager? Why was he here?_

            Tom had yet to recover from the condition that Harry had put him in--but, their young guest hadn't yet said how they could go about reversing the effects. She gave him the benefit of the doubt, though; he did seem to be "surprised" (if that's what you can call it) when he found out he was in space. And anyone would be if they had been put in his situation. 

            Janeway found Harry to be a very mysterious boy. There was something about him, something different, something almost powerful. She figured that no one could see it, but it was still there, like gravity. When Kim and Harry had entered the bridge, she remembered feeling a sudden, but slight, change in the air around them. This was probably the same thing that caused the tricorders not to work around him.

            As she watched him timidly try one of Neelix's creations from across the hall, she figured there had to be a reason for that strange feeling. There had to be…

            "He's from Earth-- he said so himself—" she said, taking a sip from her cup of coffee "—but it's almost like he isn't from the Earth we know…"

            Chakotay, a man with short dark brown hair and a tattoo on one side of his forehead, thought about this. "What makes you think that, Kathryn?"

            "Well," she said, thoughtfully, "The way he acts--it's almost like he hasn't seen _any of this before…"_

            "That could be," Chakotay commented with a slight nod of his head, "But what if he came from a part of Earth that isn't dominated by the Federation?" There was a hint of resentment for the Federation in his voice, but only slight, very slight.

            Janeway's head nodded in agreement. She almost commented on the way he dressed – he looked almost like a wizard or magician. But that was silly: there were no medieval-style wizards, who could make almost anything happen at their calling, anymore. Furthermore, teenagers about his age were known to dress in odd fashions, whatever the current trend happened to be.

            But somehow, that didn't sound quite right…

            When she looked over at Harry again, she saw that he had found out that he wasn't all that fond of Neelix's meals, or at least this particular one. He had this look on his face that told Janeway that he'd probably never tasted some of the spices, or main ingredients, that Neelix had added – and it didn't look like he liked whatever it was all that well. It was only because Neelix was standing nearby, watching him intently, that he picked the spoon up and ate it anyway.

Slowly, Harry scooped some of the green-brown colored soup into his spoon. He'd never seen, or tasted anything like this before, but he didn't want to be rude and not eat it. What if it upset the people on this ship? Sighing, he stuck the spoon in his mouth and--

            The reaction he got from this spoon full was not at all what he'd expected, or at least hoping for. Something exploded in front of him – sending him, and the chair he was sitting in, flying backwards. He landed roughly on his back--with that loud _thunk__!—where he stayed for several long moments with his eyes closed. Maybe he shouldn't have taken another bite… What was that spice, anyway?_

            He didn't open his eyes again until he was distracted by the surprised gasps of the other people in the room. When he did, he saw a sight a familiar head of bushy brown hair.

            Sitting on the table above Harry was none other than Hermione Granger.

            =/\=

            Severus Snape had only picked Hermione because he thought that out of the two of them, she'd give the more sensible answer. She had always had a better handle on logic from all angles--at least, that's what he and most of his colleagues thought. Even with that sort of grasp on an idea that complex, one had to wonder why she continued do go on those… adventures… with Potter and Weasley.

            But they never got her answer.

            Before she could answer, she simply disappeared--_Poof!--gone without a trace, save one: a steaming bowl of what presumably was soup sat on the chair where Hermione had been sitting._

            For a few moments, Ron, McGonagall, Snape, and Filch just stared blankly at the chair. McGonagall looked surprised in a McGonagall sort of fashion, though she was not as tired as she had looked before; Snape's smile at his cleverness to ask Hermione completely fell off his face, but he still kept his composure; Filch gave a nasty, Filch-like grunt in surprise. 

            Ron, on the other hand, had been completely "thrown" out a window by it all. Not only had both his friend disappeared only to be replaced by some inanimate object, but they'd left him to the hungry jaws of the three adults standing in that very room with him. (And he knew they'd look to him for at least the littlest shred of an explanation they could get). AND, he also had a disgusting soup to deal with. But, of course, he _was generally concerned about his friends._

            "Did she…?" Filch started a question, but he didn't finish it.

            "No…" Ron said automatically. "You can't Apparate or Disapparate on Hogwarts grounds!" He was quoting Hermione, who often quoted a lot of information from, _Hogwarts, A History._

            Had a telepath were to have been in that room at that very moment, they would have known that each was thinking that something very strange was going on.

            =/\=

Author's Notes -- Yeah, yeah, I know it's been a while. My new goal now is one chapter every 6 months rather than every 11 months. Gee, I need to hurry up with this. Anyway, this whole story is going to be so much fun, you just wait! Hehehe... From here on out, you know what to do. Oh, and I'd really like to do some "out takes" or bloopers at the end of the chapters, so if you have any ideas, please leave them in a review. Thanks!

Oh, and many thanks to EternalAngel, my beta. ^^


	3. Hold On Tom, the Baddie's ACallin', and ...

Amid the Star's Light

Chapter 3:  _Hold on Tom, the Baddie's A-Callin', and He's Got Ron_

In a bizarre twist of fate, Harry is replaced by a table! No, actually, he was transported through time and space to the Federation Starship _Voyager_, where Harry finds himself into a stranger place than Hogwarts. This time around, Tuvok corrects himself, Harry [Potter] and Hermione take a trip to Astrometrics, we get to meet the "locals", and Tom [Paris] struggles with the fact that he can't move.

=/\=

_This chapter is dedicated to Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, William McCool, and Ilan Ramon-the seven brave astronauts who perished on the shuttle Columbia on February 1st, 2003. _

=/\=

"Hermione?" Harry looked up from where he had landed. "Is that you?"

            She looked down in surprise. "Harry?" Hermione looked around her with a slightly confused look on her face. "Harry, where… where are we?"

            Harry shook his head. "I'm not quite sure exactly where, but I can say this much-"

            "Mr. Potter…?" Janeway half-said, half-asked as she stopped next to both of them. Chakotay came up behind her and the two of them helped Harry out of the fallen chair.

            "Who is this?" she asked. There was a slight pause, and then she added, "Do you know her?"

            Harry nodded, and introduced Hermione to Janeway and Chakotay.

            Janeway looked puzzled at this revelation. "Another one?" Harry couldn't tell whether it was a question to Chakotay or to herself, but in either case, she seemed to be in much thought. She walked a small distance away to talk to Chakotay privately.

            Looking back at Hermione, Harry scratched his head. "I'm not quite sure where to start…" But, he noticed, her eyes were not on him; rather, they were on the stars that floated passed the windows of the mess hall. He tried to wave his hand in front of her eyes, but she seemed almost hypnotized by them.

            _Was I like this when I first saw them? _he wondered. 

            In one quick motion, the captain reached up and hit the silver button/badge she wore on the left side of her uniform. "Janeway to Tuvok," she called out to no one in particular.

            "_Tuvok here,_" answered a voice that came from no one in the room (which caused Hermione to come out of her trance).

            "Did the internal scanners pick up any…strange readings?"

            A pause, then, "_No, everything is at normal levels…_"

            "Are you sure, Tuvok?"

            "_Positive._"

            Again, another pause, but this time no one spoke. If there hadn't been a small buzz in the room (which Harry took to be from the operation of the ship itself), then it would have been as quiet as Hogwarts in the middle of the night.

            Then, there was a tremor that ran beneath their feet; it was small, but they could still feel it. Shortly afterwards it was followed by another one, slightly bigger than the last.

            "_Correction, Captain,_" came the voice that have belonged to the one the captain had called 'Tuvok'.

            No one, not even Janeway, had any time to ponder the source of these tremors (or even wonder what it was that Tuvok saw at his station on the bridge) before the third one hit, violently rocking the ship.

            After the ship had stopped moving, Janeway turned to Chakotay. "Go to the bridge and help Tuvok figure out what's going on…"

            =/\=

Tom stared dully at the ceiling. He had nothing else to do, and staring at the ceiling had lost its appeal many hours ago. If only he could be up and moving! The could be working on the Delta Flyer, or playing Captain Proton with Harry Kim, or any of his responsibilities of being the ship's helmsmen. There were so many other things that he could have been doing instead of lying on an uncomfortable biobed.****

            And… And it was that boy's fault. Not that he really blamed him - he was probably scared. But that was still no excuse to freeze Tom in the first place.****

            The doctor was shuffling around somewhere on the other side of Sick Bay, running tests on some new molecular compound that might be a cure for something they might run into. "Might come in handy as a counter-agent to the next bio weapon that the captain might threaten some species with…" he'd told Tom. Soon, the shuffling stopped, and the doctor approached Tom with anothertricorder, which he opened and used to start scanning Paris with. He hummed along with a classical song that was playing in the background as he waved the tricorder's extension over Tom.

            "_Janeway to Sick Bay._" ****

            Hitting his silver combadge, the doctor replied, "Go ahead, Captain." ****

            Without a pause: "_How's Tom doing?_"

            The doctor looked at Paris and replied, "I can say this: his condition hasn't worsened, but it hasn't improved either. At least, not from what I can tell. Every time I try to scan him with a tricorder, it malfunctions."****

            "_Are you sure it's not just the tricorder?"_

            "I have used at least sixteen different tricorders."

            Pause. "_At any rate, that might not matter. I think we havea cure for it-"_

            Tom Paris's mental state of mind jumped. A cure?! If he could have moved, he would have danced.****

            "_-Is now a good time?_" ****

            The doctor hesitated. "Can you give me a bit longer to run a few more tests? I'd like to know a little more about what's going on, and perhaps an interview with our guest?"

            Paris's heart sank. How could he? Does he not know anything? Where's that bedside manner all doctors are supposed to have anyway? Just wait, Doc, just wait… Oh, if only deactivating you wasn't like letting you sleep…****

            "_Make that "guests". We have two now. I'll bring both by later, after we make a stop in Astrometrics . . . Janeway out."_

Tom's mood had never really went from high to low as fast as it had just done. He felt sort of depressed, and as the doctor leaned over him to run those tests he'd wanted to, thoughts of revenge came into his mind…

            =/\=

Ron thought that this must have been one of stranger sights he had ever seen. McGonagall had thought that with the odd disappearances of two students, who were both "replaced" by inanimate objects, the situation should be brought up before the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore; Snape, and even Filch, agreed. 

            As for the strange sight Ron thought he'd never seen before, it seemed that this little gathering slightly looked like a pajama party. Although, he didn't think Snape or Filch were the type who'd even think about going to such events; nor did he think that this gathering would consist of much fun and games. But it was highly amusing to think of the two attending the sort of pajama party that the Gryffindor girls were rumored to throw. 

            They marched along the stony hallways, going towards the headmaster's office with the table and the bowl of soup magically floating behind them. These hallways were empty, as they should be in the middle of the night.

            But, this foursome would become a threesome before they reached the Headmaster's office. Before they turned that last corner, Ron disappeared in a blink of the eye. A large, silver chair appeared in his spot, clattering to the floor with a noise that was louder than even Peeves made.

            =/\=

Upon entering a new room as he followed Janeway, Harry found it to be darker than the rest of the ship he'd seen. But it was still gray. _Is there any other color in this place? _There was a large screen directly in front of him as he entered that reminded him of a screen at a Muggle cinema, only it was filled with little white dots and lines and such. It only took one glance at Hermione to tell him that her curiosity was running wild inside of her head (she looked very fascinated by all of the blinking lights and screens).

            "Welcome to Astrometrics," Janeway said, approaching a panel that existed in front of the giant screen. 

            There was another person standing there, Harry noticed. She was tall, with blonde hair that was pulled into a French Roll (Harry wasn't quite sure where he had gotten that term…). And . . . and there looked like some sort of growth above one of her eyes.

            "Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger," the captain continued, "This is Seven of Nine." She, then, turned to Seven and asked if she could help her show their guests exactly where they were in the universe.

            Harry pondered, just for a moment before his attention was shifted to the large screen, why anyone would be named after a number. Possibly weird parents …?****

            Seven nodded and moved to a different part of the panel, where she began to press a lot of buttons. "This is Earth's present location," she said, indicating the swirling ball of green and blue on the screen. "Currently, we are approximately fifty thousand light years from Earth in the Delta Quadrant…"

            Harry's mouth dropped, and he could tell that Hermione's had as well. Even if he hadn't had a basic physics course in his educational career, fifty thousand light years still sounded like an awfully large distance.

            The pictures on the screen started to shrink; more lines appeared, as well as little solar systems. Far off in one corner of the screen, a little silver object appeared, as well as a circle that surrounded it and some numbers. A box formed around the object, zooming in on it. 

            "Our current location on _Voyager_…"

            Oddly enough, the ship they were on reminded Harry of a spoon-a spoon with wings.

            Without much of a pause, Hermione blurted out a bundle of questions, which included, "How'd we get here?", "How is this possible?", and the one Harry had been wondering, "If we're that far away from Earth, how are we going to get home?"

            Captain Janeway chuckled at Hermione's last question. "We wondered that when we first arrived in the Delta Quadrant. Along the way, we've made friends… and enemies… and we have found things to make the trip faster. And," Harry saw that her eyes had suddenly gained a strange glitter to them, "when we figure out how you got here, we might be able to get all of us home…"

            Seven: "Captain, there might be a problem with the time difference." ****

            Janeway gave Seven a strange look, as if to ask her what in the world she was talking about; but she wasn't given a chance, for Tuvok's voice once again filled the room. 

            "_Chakotay to Janeway_."

            The captain tapped her combadge, "Janeway here."

            "_We're being hailed,_" Tuvok stated, "_The Trabakian leader demands to speak with you._"

            Even though Tuvok couldn't see her, Janeway nodded. "I'll take it in Astrometrics."

            "_Acknowledged_."

            Within seconds, the rather large screen changed from a map of the galaxy to a picture of a man, who made Harry's insides turn. To him, this man looked like a strange and impossible combination of Gilderoy Lockhart and Severus Snape-most noticeably, most of Lockhart's facial features and Snape's black eyes and greasy black hair. The only thing that set him apart from either one of them was that he had what looked like horns that lay back on his hair. Behind him existed a lab of sorts, with a bunch of shiny metal equipment. There was one thing that Harry noticed out of all that he could see, and that was a funny looking chair that didn't look very comfortable.

            Lockhart/Snape's face gained a large smile when he caught sight of Janeway. "Ah, Captain Janeway, it is nice to see you again. How are you?" he asked as if it were a casual conversation.

            "I'm fine, Tu'rum. I take it you're fine as well?"

            "Positively perfect, my dear captain! So, how's the probing?"

            Janeway replied, in a professional manner, that it was now finished, and they had found large quantities of "Dry Tears'um", whatever that was.This made Lockhart/Snape very happy. "That's exactly what I was looking for!" he exclaimed, and they launched into how they were going to mine it and what _Voyager_ would be getting out of it. While he kept talking, the strange-combination-of-two-Hogwarts-professors kept eyeing Harry and Hermione.

            Harry lost interest in that conversation quickly. Not that it was boring-the Tu'rum guy was very animated when he talked. His mind wandered around a bit, and then wandered around a little bit more... Then, something caught his eye.

            Behind the guy on the screen, the funny chair that Harry had noticed suddenly disappeared, and was replaced by a very ruffled looking young man with red hair and black robes.

            Ron Weasley.

            Ron Weasley was in that man's lab. 

            Ron Weasley was being tied down by people in strange white outfits who'd just appeared in the room. ****

            Ron Weasley was in trouble.****

            =/\=

The doctor squinted at the twentieth tricorder he'd gotten his hands on that day. Tom watched him do this, as least the best he could. It was hard not being able to move his head. As such, Tom really didn't have anything else to look at except the doctor's bald head. 

            After a minute, the doctor frowned at the reading he was getting. Either they were extremely erratic, or not there at all (Tom had already heard the lecture). He sighed, shook his head, and then took off for the other side of Sick Bay. 

            "Doctor to Captain Janeway," he heard the doctor say out loud. Apparently, he was trying to get a hold of Janeway via the comm system.

            "_Janeway here._" She sounded a little stressed

"I have completed the tests I wanted to run, so you may bring our guests by…"

            "_That's good, doctor, but… we've got a bit of a situation…_"

            _Great_, Tom Paris thought to himself, _just great…Now there's a problem with something… If it's not one thing, it's another…_ And with that, he knew that he'd be stuck there even longer…

            =/\=

_Captain's Log, Supplemental_

…

            _The events of the last few hours…well, we'll just say that they have stumped most of the senior staff. Tuvok is, as always, working hard to see if he can't figure it out. I believe that he was found something that might help-a connection between the three appearances and the nebula we've been probing for the Trabakian government. Seven has a theory about it, but she won't elaborate on it...._****

_            As for our latest guest, we have a bit a situation. It seems that he appeared the Trabakian ambassador's … office (for the lack of a better word). This happened the last time we spoke, and we haven't been able to contact any of the surrounding facilities. Mr. Potter and Ms. Granger told me that he was their friend, Ron Weasley; they are worried, as am I, about his safety._

_            I hope that we can at least contact Tu'rum or one of his assistants, or I'm afraid that we might have to take more desperate measures…_

_            …_

=/\=

=\/=

Author's Notes - Yeah! Chapter 3 is out and it took me half as long as I said it would have… ^^ I would have gotten it out sooner, but the need to pass all my classes out weighed the writing of this chapter. You wouldn't believe how many times EternalAngel and I revised parts and rethought other parts. *sigh* Anyway, comments and questions are always welcome. Bloopers and other funny things are needed! Please send them in! And… I hope you stick around for at least the next two chapters, because they are going to be really exciting!

Look out for the next chapter: _Hey! The Good Guys Aren't Supposed To Be Captured!_

=/\=****


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